COMMUNALIST MANIFESTO

Six degrees

It is true.  I am not ashamed of it.  I perform cost-benefit analysis on relationships.

I remember sitting in one of the first classes of my second year of graduate school.  I had just graduated with my Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.  In conjunction with my regular undergraduate workload, I was taking the first year graduate school courses.

I had originally meant to enter the Environmental Studies program when I was transferring from my 7th year at community college. Once I entered UCSC I found out that one had to test into E.S.  I also then heard of an accelerated Master’s of Science degree in Economics, which also meant taking the GRE’s.  The minute I became aware that I was weighing the cost of getting into either program – having to take a test to enter, and the benefit – a B.S. in one year vs. an M.S. in two – well, it became very apparent where I should apply my efforts.

So there we were, a handful of wide-eyed undergrads who slogged out a summer class giving us the necessary background in linear algebra to understand the basics of regression analysis.  I didn’t even understand the latter part of that last sentence until the end of my first year of graduate school.

That handful of us, many of which, as undergraduates made the same cost-benefit analysis as I, were thrown into the world of regression analysis and econometrics with the expectation to sink or swim with first year PhD candidates. We survived and here we were, freshly minted graduate students, already veterans on the path to receive an master’s degree.  Those of us who salivated at the thought of getting an M.S. with only one year of graduate school and forgot to ask what we were going to study, finally understood what we were getting a degree for.

The guest professor that day, was guest lecturing from Stanford. I can’t remember his name, but he was personable and smart and had some great stories.  He started telling a story about a friend of his in college who was such a geek that he would do things like perform cost-benefit analysis of his relationships and so forth.  Not seconds after he started the story, my entire cohort turned around to look at me.

If economics is the allocation of scarce resources for competitive uses, then it would be appropriate to use understand it in terms of my most valuable resources – my time and attention. 

Now there are people who would argue love would be valuable, if not even more valuable, but I like to think that love is infinite and is bounded only by my physical existence and my ability to stay conscious and focused- at least that is the reality tunnel I am in at the moment. I am sure that dedicating my life to meditation or psychedelics, I would be able to alter that tunnel, but as of yet I have not been so inspired.

The idea of the finiteness of my time and attention is summed up, for me, with the “Core Four.”  This is the notion that a person can only maintain up to four really intimate, deep, connected, relationships at one time.  I like to hope it is actually the “Core Six,” because given “Six Degrees of Separation” holds true and I can ensure that I have six relationships that move, touch, and inspire each of us to become better human beings, then we can move, touch, and inspire everyone on the planet to become better human beings.

The trick, I think, is to make sure the other six people don’t all share the same six people and you get a closed clique.  What we want is an open chain with each node touching as many different nodes as possible.

Do I perform cost benefit on those six people? No.  Cost-benefit for me has evolved only when my heart and gut cannot give me a proper answer.  Those four to six relationships leave no question.  Who does not want to be intimate and loved by the most inspirational and loving human beings you know.

It is time

I think I am ready for the next big step in my life.

Yes, I feel that I am buckling down and ready for some responsibility.

I am ready to take responsibility for fostering another life another life.

Yep, it’s time for a puppy.

I have succeeded on keeping most of my plants alive – thrive even. The next logical step would be some sort of low maintenance vertebrate, say say fish, amphibian, or reptile… but not me… I am heading straight to mammals.

I have actually had three chances at taking home a puppy in the last two months. The first was this adorable sheepdog that someone was trying to find a good home. I read the flyer tacked up at the post office. I was suddenly struck with the pipe dream that I could train it to herd the goats around the brewery property, keeping the grass in check for disc golf. Luckily my round of phone tag never played out and the pup went home to someone more suited to actually train the little bugger.

The second chance was near the apex of a bender right before SF Beer Week. Mateo, Tommy, Marie and I decided to tie one on at the Gold Dust. Arch, the Gold Dust resident artist who usually parked his mobile studio on the front doorstep of the dust, has two lovely dogs. The younger of the two was prone to run our on her own adventures, and Arch wanted to find her a home where such adventures were less likely to be fatal. He mentioned it to me, and I told him that I would have to take her home on a two week trial and see if she chooses me. He said that he promised her to someone already but if it didn’t work out he will be letting me know.

The third was a fox red lab recently purchased by a lady who works at the local bakery who realized she and her daughter were not up to the challenge of raising a pup. The picture was damn cute. It looked purebred… I am a little hesitant about purebreds and health issues and not to mention the prices. I am not to partial to labs either but, like said, this one was soo darned cute.

On the disc golf course I mentioned it to my friend Jay who remarked that it was probably a pretty pricey pooch. I then realized that the flyer did not specify if there was money involved. When I inquired, the $800 mentioned quickly strengthened my resolve regarding purebreds and labs. The caveat “or best offer” did little to sway my decision.

I am a mutt and a mutt is good enough for me. Then my friend Rebekah mentioned she had just helped deliver a litter and that the puppies are looking for a good home. So I am going to go see the little fuzz balls and see if there is a connection.

My ideal dog would be just like Tyler…

Back on the Wagon

I have been out of integrity with my pact made with Nicholas.  I have not written my 10-minutes-a-day in many days.  One reason is that the cold I was fighting off, finally caught up to me.  Another was the Nightmares On Wax show, and the aftermath. 

Gseppi turned me on to "Smoker's Delight" over a decade ago.  In all that time, NoW never had come to the United States. If they ever did, I swore if I would be at the show.  Then a few months back, Thomas pinged me not only was NoW playing his first US tour, but it would be at a cozy club in SF called the Independent.  On top of that, the tickets would only be $15! 

For those of you not familiar with NoW, the name sounds like a band, but in reality is has been up to this point, a one-man band.  DJ EASE (Aka George Evelyn).  Wiki the rest.

So a rally cry was sent out and about 20 of us descended upon the Independent and waited to see what magic would be wrought.  The opening DJ was really quite good, and amidst the cocktails and conversation, provided a good warm up for what would follow.

When I had glanced over reviews I thought it would be a large ensemble, not unlike the first Groove Armada show I had seen (and have not seen since - DJ sets suck!)  When Evyln came out to a couple of turntables and a Macbook, I was a little disappointed.  Hell I could hit play on my iPod for this! Then I noticed that how and what he was mixing, made me feel better about my choice to pilgrimage down to the city on a school night.

And then the vocalists came out.  A guy and a gal, sounding like the voices I heard on the albums that have brought me such delight.   With the beats that EASE was throwing down, the message those two piped out, lifted my soul and made my hips sway.  The rock-steady and reggae beats were almost old school, but the message!  The lyrics reminded me of the heyday of reggae - when it was still conscious music of rebellion, before it became the egotistical material dancehall.

It was all summed up with the encore.  Encores are almost perfunctory.  Many shows almost feels pre-planned - band goes offstage, wait 2 minutes come back on, then round out the set we are paid to do.  I almost prefer the artists that don't do encores, playing out their time without any false pretense.  Once in a while, you get the feeling that the crowds wanton cheering actually inspires a band to come back out.   NoW ended their first set with "We've got the soul, we got the soul" where the crowd took over the lyric when they walked offstage.  We continued to chant "We've got the soul, we got the soul", louder and louder. until finally NoW came back onstage and picked up what we held for them and rocked the house one more time.  I could not help in that moment, that these 3 people truly did "have the soul."

Art vs Production

My first job in the Bay Area was with a company that provided data and analytics for institutional investors to help benchmark portfolios and manage the risk of their investments.  One of the distinctions I took away from that job was the idea that, in the long-run, no fund manager had outperformed the market.  This idea is driven home with all the financial debacles as of late which highlight short-sighted, speculative, or even unscrupulous behavior.

I would posit that long-run growth in our economy reflects the growth of creativity. Creativity manifests in the form of a new song, a hit movie, an innovative product, a more efficient means of production, etc.  These innovations are pulled forth from the ethereal by creative individuals who look, think, and feel outside the box.   These individuals, like George from Isaac Asimov’s short story ‘Profession’, create innovation in society.

Like George, this innovative, creative spirit is not something that can be taught, but is something that is discovered through individual process.

The 20th century heralded in a new age of accessibility to affordable innovation through mass production.  Henry Ford did not invent the car, but he made it possible for a huge swath of people to access to one.  Ford capitalized on the assembly line, affording great economies of scale.

The assembly line creates products with extreme efficiency, but in order to do so, it also makes cogs out of people.  In an assembly line culture, innovative thinking is not as well rewarded as consistency, efficiency, and repetition.

As many a craft beer snob will turn their nose up to a Budweiser, one must respect that, for the sheer volume of product produced, it is consistent, with very little defects, and produced in a very cost effective manner.

The Georges of the world tend not to work well in constrained repetitive environments.  Some Georges may still lurk in the cubicles or the factory floors, but the truly great cultural creative often wither and die in such environments.  These mavericks will pursue their life outside of the hierarchical bureaucracy and one day will create something that is so creative, innovative and passion instilling, in spite of a lack of traditional business acumen, a new company is created or a new industry is born.

In this cradle, creativity is Art.  At one extreme is the one-off creation.  Each product produced by the artist is a unique expression of the creator.  Craft comes when the artist is able to make many pieces of art, but yet still have a personal connection to each piece created.   Production comes when you take that expression and you produce it at levels allowing everyone to enjoy.

The alchemy that one must juggle is how to blend production with art.  Go to far one way and you either have a product to expensive to be enjoyed by the average person, or so ubiquitous that it has loss any connection to the spirit of its creator.

I was at Hangar One this weekend, and I saw a company deeply connected to the art of creating spirits.  Even our tour guide, Andy, exemplified the art of presentation in educating us in the art of distilling.   The idea of ‘less but better’ is such a poignant notion for where we exist in today’s world.  We have created a flat world where labor can migrate anywhere around the globe where it is cheapest. We have gotten a world of cheap products at the expense of our communities and environment.  Our ‘super-sized’ consumption patterns make us buy the ‘20% More’ because we think we are getting value and yet we pay for it later with our rising health care costs. 

The craft beer movement, the slow food movement, and micro-distilling movement, are examples of how we are bringing our consumption patterns back to art.

I look at these economically troubled times, and I don’t see people people losing their jobs, I see millions of Georges who are now free to create the fertile bed for the next decade of economic growth we just need to give them access to a canvas on which to paint.